Fraunhofer diffraction by a thin wire and Babinets principle

Salvatore Gancia)
Liceo Scientifico di Stato G. Marconi, Piazza del Popolo, 14, 16043 Chiavari, Italy

Received 7 September 2003; accepted 16 July 2004

The Fraunhofer diffraction of a Gaussian wave field incident on a thin wire is examined. It is shown
theoretically and experimentally that a simple application of Babinets principle leads to erroneous
results. 2005 American Association of Physics Teachers.
DOI: 10.1119/1.1791274

In experiments on Fraunhofer diffraction, it usually is assumed that the incident beam is a plane monochromatic
wave. Babinets principle,1 as often quoted in textbooks2 4 or
in the pedagogical literature5,6 predicts identical diffracted
wave fields for complementary apertures. The only difference of the fields of the complementary apertures is an onaxis term. However, this statement of Babinets principle is
misleading if the incident wave is not a plane wave. In the
following, we will consider a practical case for which the
application of Babinets principle requires caution when applied to a Fraunhofer diffraction pattern if the illumination is
not by a plane wave.
Consider a unit amplitude plane monochromatic wave normally incident through an aperture A in an absorbing screen,
and let the complementary screen be A c . The diffracted wave
fields u A (x 0 ,y 0 ) and u C (x 0 ,y 0 ) are7
u A x 0 ,y 0

ik 2
exp ikz
exp
x y 20
iz
2z 0

exp i

2
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy,

and for the complementary aperture, because A C 1A,

u c x 0 ,y 0

exp ikz
iz

dx dy

exp i

u x 0 ,y 0

t x /2

t x /2

exp b x 2 y 2 exp i

ik 2
exp ikz
exp
x y 20
iz
2z 0

ik 2
x y 20
2z 0

l x /2

t x /2

Am. J. Phys. 73 1, January 2005

u A x 0 ,y 0 u C x 0 ,y 0 u 0 x 0 ,y 0 ,

where b is a constant. If the wave field is incident on a

rectilinear wire of width l x , then for the Fraunhofer approximation, the diffracted wave field u(x 0 ,y 0 ) at the (x 0 ,y 0 ),
plane is11

exp b x 2 y 2 exp i

2
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy
z

exp b x 2 y 2 exp i

exp b x 2 y 2 exp i

http://aapt.org/ajp

where u 0 (x 0 ,y 0 ) is the unperturbed incident wave field at the

point P(x 0 ,y 0 ).
The example of Fraunhofer diffraction for an incident
Gaussian wave field illustrates the meaning of Babinets
principle. For the case of a normally incident plane monochromatic wave, a sinc distribution with a central spot due to
the on-axis term is expected for a rectilinear wire. However,
the peculiarity of the Gaussian distribution is to give a superposition with a sinc term that gives two minima as is
visible in Fig. 1.
The laser beam from a common HeNe laser has a wave
field with a Gaussian amplitude distribution. Namely, if
(x,y) is the wave field in the plane of incidence x,y, then
x,y expb x 2 y 2 ,

2
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy,

exp

83

k
xx 0 2 yy 0 2
2z

ik 2
exp ikz
exp
x y 20
iz
2z 0

exp i

ik 2
exp ikz
exp
x y 20
iz
2z 0

where (x 0 ,y 0 ) are the coordinates in the observation plane at

a distance z (zx) from the aperture. The first integral in
Eq. 2 is simply the incident wave. For the special case of
plane wave illumination, the on-axis term of the incident
wave and the diffraction pattern of the far-field noncomplementary aperture are observed.
A more general and correct form of Babinet principle8,9
within the framework of Huygens principle10 namely in the
treatment that follows from the Kirchhoff or Rayleigh
Sommerfeld integral formulas states that the wave fields
u A (x 0 ,y 0 ) and u C (x 0 ,y 0 ) for the diffracted wave fields
through an aperture A and a complementary screen C must
satisfy

2
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy
z

2
exp ikz
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy
z
iz

2
xx 0 y y 0 dx dy .
z

2005 American Association of Physics Teachers

83

Fig. 1. The phenomenology of the thin wire diffraction problem. The presence of two sharp minima inside the central peak of the sinc distribution is
evident. Laser source: Uniphase 1125 P; power: 5 mW; beam diameter (1/e 2
point: 0.81 mm manufacturers data. Wire width 0.30 mm; distance of the
observation plane2.35 m. The photograph was taken by a direct projection
of the diffraction pattern onto photographic film Ilford FP4 with an intensity filter interposed.

Fig. 2. Graphical plot of the intensity from Eq. 6 generated by MATH4.0. Parameters of the plot: b3.049 mm2 , z2.35 m, l x
0.30 mm, and 632.8 nm. Shown is the intensity distribution of the
diffracted wave field versus position mm. The maximum intensity of the
incident Gaussian beam is taken to be unity. The two above mentioned
minima are a distance of about 2 mm from the center in agreement with
experimental observation.

EMATICA

u x 0 ,y 0
The integral extending from to in Eq. 5 is the
Fourier transform of a Gaussian wave field, whereas the
evaluation of the last integral requires a McLaurin expansion
of the Gaussian function.
The first-order McLaurin expansion of Eq. 4 gives
(x,y)exp(by2), and hence Eq. 5 yields
u x 0 ,y 0

exp ikz
ik 2
exp
x y 20
iz
2z 0

2 y 20

exp 2 2
b
b z

2 x 20

exp 2 2 l x
b
b z

sin l x

lx

x0
z

x0
z

sin l x

x0
z

x0
lx
z

. 6

Am. J. Phys., Vol. 73, No. 1, January 2005

ik 2
sin l x f x
.
8
x 0 y 20 l x
2z
lx f x
The same approximation for the incident wave field is
adopted in Eqs. 6 and 8. The Babinet principle as stated
in Ref. 1 is incorrect; the diffracted wave fields for complementary apertures not only differ in the on-axis wave field,
but also differ in the off-axis diffracted field. It is easy to
verify that Eqs. 6 and 8 are consistent with Eq. 2 and in
agreement with the conclusions of Ref. 10.
exp

The revisions and specific suggestions of an anonymous

referee are gratefully acknowledged.
a

Electronic mail: salvatore_ganci@vodafone.it

M. Babinet, Memoires doptique meteorologique, C. R. Acad. Sci. 4,
638 648 1837.
2
Jurgen R. Mayer-Arendt, Introduction to Classical and Modern Optics
PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972, p. 162.
3
L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifchitz, The Classical Theory of Fields Pergamon, Oxford, 1962, pp. 176 178.
4
D. W. Tenquist, R. M. Whittle, and J. Yarwood, University Optics Iliffe
Books, London, 1970, Vol. 2, p. 275.
5
T. B. Greenslade, Jr., Diffraction by a cats whisker, Phys. Teach. 38,
422 2000.
6
S. M. Curry and A. L. Shawlow, Measuring the diameter of a hair by
diffraction, Am. J. Phys. 42, 412 413 1974.
7
Joseph W. Goodman, Introduction to Fourier Optics McGraw-Hill, New
York, 1968, pp. 57 62.
8
Arnold Sommerfeld, Optics Academic, New York, 1954, pp. 204 205.
9
Max Born and Emil Wolf, Principles of Optics Pergamon, London, 1959,
p. 380.
10
J. R. Jimenez and E. Hita, Babinets principle in scalar theory of diffraction, Opt. Rev. 8, 495 497 2001.
11
Reference 7, Chaps. 2 and 4.
12
Reference 7, pp. 62 63.
1

Equation 7 can be solved graphically for x 0 . The cross

section (y 0 0) of the intensity I(x 0 ) u(x 0 ,y 0 2 is shown
in Fig. 2 and two minima inside the central maximum of the
sinc term is in agreement with experimental observation see
Fig. 1.
Obviously the same approximation, (x,y) exp
(by2), holds if the complementary slit is used instead of a
thin wire and gives the well known distribution12

84

exp ikz
exp by 20
b
iz

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

An inspection of Eq. 6 shows that the wave field becomes

zero when

2 x 20

exp 2 2 l x
b
b z

Salvatore Ganci

84